I want to highlight a few points from the IPCC's Mitigation Report (PDF).
First, even the most stringent global greenhouse gas targets can be met at a cost of a mere 0.1% of GDP per year!
While the report is not explicit about when action should be taken, it does say that:
In order to stabilize the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, emissions would need to peak and decline thereafter. The lower the stabilization level, the more quickly this peak and decline would need to occur.
The Center for American Progress and I have encouraged stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 ppm and/or a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial era. That said, according to one of the report's charts (see page 22), reductions aimed to cut emissions 85% by 2050 must be initiated before 2015.
And maybe sooner. According to the IPCC:
Decision-making about the appropriate level of global mitigation over time involves an iterative risk management process that includes mitigation and adaptation, taking into account actual and avoided climate change damages, co-benefits, sustainability, equity, and attitudes to risk. ... if the damage cost curve increases steeply, or contains non-linearities (e.g. vulnerability thresholds or even small probabilities of catastrophic events), earlier and more stringent mitigation is economically justified.
Tucked into footnote 37 of the report, there's a brief discussion of feedbacks that could certainly, and dangerously, be categorized as a non-linear, vulnerable threshold to which we are blind.
The message of the report is clear. Countries must act, and soon. We can choose to stabilize the climate and still maintain prosperous economies. But we must make a financial commitment that just hasn't materialized. We've been going backwards. The IPCC reports:
Government funding in real absolute terms for most energy research programmes has been flat or declining for nearly two decades (even after the UNFCCC came into force) and is now about half of the 1980 level.
At this point, that is unacceptable. The policies the IPCC has recommended have great potential and low cost. The world needs make the political and economic commitments to curb emissions. The time to act is now.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
Karen Lee Orr Posted 5:08 am
05 May 2007
This is an excerpt from the joint press release by Global Forest Coalition, Biofuelwatch, Global Justice Ecology Project, Grupo de Reflexion Rural (Argentina), Rettet den Regenwald e.V., Econexus, Munlochy Vigil, and Noah (Friends of the Earth Denmark), Corporate Europe Observatory, and Gaia Foundation
The IPCC Assessment Report Four has made a compelling case on what global warming means to the planet this century. It is the IPCC's strongest warning yet that drastic cuts in carbon emissions are vital if we are to avoid a catastrophic acceleration of climate change. Environmental groups are, however, deeply concerned that the IPCC's Summary for Policy Makers on climate mitigation, released earlier today, includes a recommendation for large-scale expansion of biofuels from monocultures, including from GM crops, even though monoculture expansion is a driving force behind the destruction of rainforests and other carbon sinks and reservoirs, thus accelerating climate change. The IPCC also recommend the expansion of large-scale agroforestry monoculture plantations. These plantations, which will include GM trees, are similarly linked to ecosystem destruction. Monoculture expansion is a major threat to the livelihoods and food sovereignty of communities many of which are already bearing the brunt of climate change disasters caused largely by the fossil fuel emissions of industrialised countries.
Almuth Ernsting of Biofuelwatch stated: "It is already clear that the burgeoning demand for biofuels that has been created to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is actually increasing them by deforestation in the tropics and accelerating climate change. So far, only 1% of global transport fuel comes from biofuels, yet already biofuels cause steep rises in grain and vegetable oil prices, threatening the food security of poor people and spurring agricultural expansion into forests and grasslands, on which we depend for a stable climate".
The IPCC recommend second generation GM biofuels, which are widely believed to be at least 10-15 years away from commercialisation. There are serious concerns about the risks involved in technologies which will rely heavily on GM microbes and fungi for the refining process, as well as GM crops and trees.
Mayer Hillman, senior fellow emeritus at Policy Studies Institute said: "There is an inherent and acutely serious problem within the report. On the one hand, it leaves us in no doubt to how vital conservation of the planet's ecosystems and carbon sinks are to averting the worst predictions made in the previous sections of the report. On the other, it proposes the large scale use of the biosphere to satisfy demand in the transport and energy sectors." Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide coalition of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organizations added: "It is difficult to see how an emphasis on protecting rainforests and curbing deforestation is compatible with using biofuels as a solution to climate change when there are no policy instruments that guarantee biofuel expansion without accelerating deforestation."
The IPCC report would appear to suggest that the climate can be stabilised at a safe level without reducing growth. The signatories to the press release believe that only large-scale reductions in energy use in the industrial nations, together with investment in sustainable forms of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, can avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
See the press release and details of the signatory organizations at the link below:
Global Justice Ecology
http://globaljusticeecology.org/index.php?name=getrees&am ...
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Andrew Dessler Posted 5:10 am
05 May 2007
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calvinjones Posted 7:24 am
05 May 2007
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=calvinjones
Interested in climate change?
http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com
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Billhook Posted 7:43 am
05 May 2007
the Economist article you linked is sadly misinformed with regard to a stabilization target.
It claims that a target of "550ppmv CO2 is thought by most scientists to be safeish."
This is pretty obvious nonsense.
Even a 450ppmv level gives only an even chance of avoiding more than 2 degrees C of warming,
beyond which the likelyhood of catastrophic self-fuelling warming,
with a radically destabilized climate,
and successive years of global crop failure,
becomes more likely than not.
Safeish 550ppmv ain't.
On that level rests the astonishing projection of costs of a mere 0.1% of GDP.
I say astonishing because the calculation is for at least 43 years hence, averaged around the world,
with no credible knowledge of how events will pan out.
Beside a real lack of confidence in such a forecast being anything more than a confidence building excercise,
I have a difficulty with the received wisdom that we are seeking to stabilize GHGs (CO2 equiv) at some particular higher level.
Given the range, rate and potential scale of the positive feedback loops that are already awake and accelerating,
with CO2 at 380ppmv (35% higher than the pre-industrial level)
it looks like arrant nonsense to assume, as UNFCCC signatory govts do,
that we have any hope of stabilization at a still higher concentration.
Maybe it could be done at a lower concentration ?
The DOC loop (being an impact of high CO2 on microbes in peat, which cause the latter to break down, putting dissolved Organic Carbom into watercourses)
took off globally in the early '60s, with CO2 at (I think) about 320ppmv.
This loop's output has been rising at ~ 6% /yr and, if unmitigated,
would outweigh the total present fossil fuel emissions by about 2060.
(Formal Paper in Nature about 2 yrs ago).
Thus it appears that any hope of "stabilization" lies somewhere below 320 ppmv.
I would appreciate others' thoughts on these issues.
Perhaps I should add that I in no way wish to depress any reader's spirits.
What we are seeing is largely great power brinkmanship in my view,
over the seminal issue of just how the necessarily declining global carbon budget for C21
is going to be allocated among the nations with sufficient equity to be both swiftly negotiable,
and reliably resilient under the serious strains that the nations are undoubtedly going to face.
Regards,
Bill
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:48 am
05 May 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/biofuels
http://greyfalcon.net/brazil
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:09 am
05 May 2007
I call the current and future climate the "Goldilocks Climate".
Not too cool, like the Little Ice Age.
Not too hot, like the Medieval Warming.
It's just right.
Right for development, right for crops.
Just perfect for humans.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Earth Shaman Posted 10:20 am
05 May 2007
Earth Shaman
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:03 pm
05 May 2007
Who says we can't grow our economy by providing innovation and jobs with Green technology?
Your response sounds a lot like what Newt Gingrich was talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upphPTRr_PE
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sunflower Posted 1:28 pm
05 May 2007
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Earth Shaman Posted 2:11 pm
05 May 2007
Earth Shaman
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MarkUK Posted 4:38 pm
05 May 2007
What is grid revv? And how is it the cause of everything?
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Pangolin Posted 5:55 pm
05 May 2007
Anybody who thinks the current CO2 concentrations are safe doesn't seem to have been reading the literature. The arctic polar region is losing it's ice cover at an accelerating rate. Siberian lakes are boiling with released methane. Permafrost is melting and releasing millenia of organic matter to biological processes releasing more carbon.
The question that should concern us is what are the limits to runaway climate change. Where does it stop?
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JMG Posted 7:04 pm
05 May 2007
Correct me if I'm wrong ---
but doesn't the chart at the top of the page presume that atmospheric CO2 levels remain a function of emissions --- that is, that we can reach those levels of CO2 without triggering positive feedback loops that take the atmospheric concentration out of our hands entirely?
In Fred Pearce's great new book "With Speed and Violence," he makes the point that the IPCC, rather than being "radical," is actually quite conservative because it does not model likely runaway feedback loops (ocean saturation leading to termination of ocean carbon sequestration and possibly frozen undersea methane releases, tundra melting leading to enormous above ground methane releases, etc. etc.)
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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bluestems Posted 7:34 pm
05 May 2007
I would rather see a solid attempt to reach an 85% reduction, and perhaps we won't make it; however, this is a chaotic system, so any reduction will have an impact. And, if an effort is not made today, at what cost later?
Environmental stewardship and economic progress does not need to be an either-or scenario. Organizations like the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) are consultants to businesses and countries (including China!) in real solutions that are economically feasible.
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bluestems Posted 7:42 pm
05 May 2007
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erich Posted 1:51 am
06 May 2007
can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.
Could you please consider looking for a champion for this orphaned Terra Preta Carbon Soil Technology.
The main hurtle now is to change the current perspective held by the IPCC that the soil carbon cycle is a wash, to one in which soil can be used as a massive and ubiquitous Carbon sink via Charcoal. Below are the first concrete steps in that direction;
Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.
Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Biomass by 2030
by Ralph P. Overend, Ph.D. and Anelia Milbrandt
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
http://www.ases.org/climatechange/toc/07_biomass.pdf
The organization 25x25 (see 25x'25 - Home) released it's (first-ever, 55-page )"Action Plan" ; see http://www.25x25.org/storage/25x25/d...ActionPlan.pdf
On page 31, as one of four foci for recommended RD&D, the plan lists: "The development of biochar, animal agriculture residues and other non-fossil fuel based fertilizers, toward the end of integrating energy production with enhanced soil quality and carbon sequestration."
and on p 32, recommended as part of an expanded database aspect of infrastructure: "Information on the application of carbon as fertilizer and existing carbon credit trading systems."
I feel 25x25 is now the premier US advocacy organization for all forms of renewable energy, but way out in front on biomass topics.
There are 24 billion tons of carbon controlled by man in his agriculture , I forgot the % that is waste, but when you add all the other cellulose waste which is now dumped to rot or digested or combusted and ultimately returned to the atmosphere as GHG, the balanced number is around 24 Billion tons. So we have plenty of bio-mass.
Even with all the big corporations coming to the GHG negotiation table, like Exxon, Alcoa, .etc, we still need to keep watch as they try to influence how carbon management is legislated in the USA. Carbon must have a fair price, that fair price and the changes in the view of how the soil carbon cycle now can be used as a massive sink verses it now being viewed as a wash, will be of particular value to farmers and a global cool breath of fresh air for us all.
If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of G. I. T. , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.
Erich J. Knight
540-289-9750
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Karen Street Posted 2:30 am
06 May 2007
The Economist is referring to a GHG concentration that leaves little chance that the temperature increase since pre-industrial times will stay below 2 C. As the article states, cost assumptions include nuclear power, a relatively cheap (if you count the cost of human life, otherwise coal is cheaper) source of electricity. I mention this because many people on Gristmill still oppose nuclear power.
To reduce chances to 50% of a dangerous 2 C increase (and Hansen and others would like to see the increase stay below 1.9 C), we need to aim for 450 ppm CO2e. The Stern Review believes that this is the smallest GHG concentration that we can achieve. The IPCC report suggests that 445 ppm may be possible.
All of these levels are dangerous.
Re positive feedback: GHG concentrations were more than 320 ppm in the 70s, that's where CO2 was. Eg, now CO2 is at 382 ppm and CO2e is at 430 ppm. We don't know how important positive feedbacks will be, but SPM WGII gives a range.
I am also struck by the tone of the report: even where cheap, actually changing behavior will be like turning the Titanic. Changing the behavior of lots of people, at least in the industrialized world, China and India, changing lots of policies. Change often leads to time-consuming arguments (one reason why fossil fuels were de facto the preferred source of electricity) -- but we don't have time. A lot of the analysis doesn't work as well if the growth in different sectors -- transportation, people -- continues on its current path.
Just think how many people we all know who are passionately interested in the environment, yet drive low mileage cars, use inefficient light bulbs and appliances, and fly frequently. Add in a vested interest or two, and we're talking delay.
According to SPM WGIII, to max at 445 ppm, we need for CO2 emissions to peak close to 2000, and for GHG emissions in 2050 to be 85% below 2000 levels (about 95% reduction from Business as Usual). Maybe Stern is too optimistic in believing that 450 ppm is an achievable goal.
With wind + solar + increased geothermal unlikely to keep pace with the increase in electricity production in the US over the next 15 years, we pretty well need to build nuclear power plants at least in that time frame. I've heard some people say let's wait to see if renewables and geothermal together can solve our problems, but waiting increases minimum GHG concentrations. Those who argue against nuclear power extend the time for CO2 emissions to peak, and raise substantially both the level of committed atmospheric CO2e and temperature increase. And environmental devastation. There is no environmentally friendly technology we can reject. (Some technologies, such as cellulosic biofuels, may be friendly at one level, where they benefit marginal lands, but may compete with food on better land at higher levels. Thank goodness we have created so much marginal land, cellulosic biofuels have a solid niche.)
While no one in policy will depend on voluntary reductions in GHG emissions (we have given them no reason to), it appears that if enough of us make enough changes in our own lives, we can reduce the chances of a 2 C temperature increase.
Karen Street
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Pangolin Posted 7:23 am
06 May 2007
My understanding of the current burn rates of fossil hydrocarbons and coal is that they exceed the total carbon uptake of all terrestrial biomass in any given year. That is to say that if we scraped the US of all terrestrial plant matter every year and somehow converted all of that to charcoal and bury it we would still be adding CO2 to the atmosphere due to fossil fuel emissions. Please correct me on this if I'm wrong.
I see the value in Terra Preta in being a means of reducing emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases not the least of which are methane from composting and NOX from overfertilization of agricultural lands.
I live in Butte County CA. home of many, many acres of rice fields and almond/walnut orchards. Burning of rice straw is being curtailed in favor of winter flooding. My understanding is that winter flooding converts a significant portion of the rice straw residue to methane.
In addition California orchardists and vineyards burn their pruning waste on open pile to prevent the spread of disease. Pyrolisis and reintigration of the biochar could serve that purpose while reducing thier nitrate inputs.
What isn't available easily is cost sheets, operations guides and nitrate or fertilizer equivilency charts.
Help us out over here, the air gets NASTY when they burn those rice fields.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:35 am
06 May 2007
The best way to meet our goals is going to be going electric with our transportation. (Primarily with plugin hybrids)
And then from there, focus on greening our electricity grid.
(Mainly via wind, solar, geothermal, and leveraging high density storage like batteries and pumped hydro storage)
_
Past that,
Curb emmisions
Save the rainforrests
Raise the price on meat
Replace most jet travel with high speed rail
And replace what jet travel is left with bio-jetfuel
_
Assuming we could get those few things done, we'd be almost all the way there.
(And note, no Ethanol, Hydrogen, BioDiesel, or Carbon Sequestration)
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calvinjones Posted 8:41 am
06 May 2007
The webcast I link to above may inform the debate.
550 is a long way from safe. We dont know just how may positive feedbacks would be working at that point and weather a global tipping point would be passed but such a projection is not to far off, it is a real risk.
A lot of this is clarified in the technical summary of WG3's work. The technical summary is a 110page work rather than 32pages and has many interesting diagrams ommited from the SPM.
Download here
Interested in climate change?
http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com
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amazingdrx Posted 11:21 pm
06 May 2007
A123 has the solution in production.
But that still leaves a lot of GHG to clean up and non GHG emitting electric power generation to charge the plugins.
You can bet that any large body formed up to study solutions, like the IPCC studied the problems,would instead shunt the efforts off into fuel farming, nukes, and "clean" coal, at the expense of real solution like plugins running on renewables, geothermal heating/cooling, and distributed renewable power generation and storage.
Biogas is capable of backing up wind, water, and solar power right now. From the scale of a single family home all the way up to high voltage DC grid power.
The mass delusional media has been pushed into partial acceptance of the dangerous reality by the IPCC report. Could another version of this with those specializing in energy solutions do the same? It's worth a try.
But look out for the coalies,nukers, and flex fuel farm advocates. Corporate/government power would pack the panel with them.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sasquatch Posted 2:51 am
07 May 2007
eating
meat
SEE Livestock's Long Shadow:
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/frame.htm
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mihan Posted 3:26 am
07 May 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 4:11 am
07 May 2007
We in the United States are a big part or the problem. Americans consume almost a quarter of all the beef produced in the world.
A growing awareness of the hidden environmental and health costs of beef consumption is leading more Americans adopt a plant based diet.
Beyond Beef prepared a briefing kit about rainforest destruction, resource depletion, global warming, world hunger, human disease, animal suffering and other compelling reasons why more Americans are eating less beef.
Here's the Beyond Beef report:
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html
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